How to Structure a Blog Post That Ranks

Did you do deep research for a topic to write a blog post on? That’s not enough to rank better in the SERP. You need to structure a blog in the right way so that it fulfills the user’s search intent and follows the Search Engine guidelines.

If you have in-depth research data but you don’t follow the right structure for the blog post, you will hardly get results. Search Engines and users both want to see content that is easy to navigate. That’s why it’s important to prepare a structure of a blog post keeping these things in mind.

Now the question is how to structure a blog post that ranks and what should be the elements of it! Should you follow your competitors or should you go for a unique strategy for preparing a blog writing structure?

In this post, I am going to discuss everything including what is the best blog post structure you can follow.

Things to Follow to Structure a Blog Post

Before you write a blog post, you must do your research on the topic. Also, you need to understand the anatomy of an optimized blog post. For it, you need to follow the following things to give the perfect shape to a blog post structure. So, here are the things that will guide you on how to structure a blog post that ranks:

Include an engaging intro in the blog writing structure

No matter what topic you are covering in a blog post, it should always have an interesting intro. This is the part that your readers will check at the beginning. You need to convince your readers that the content is going to provide value. And the first paragraph of the content is the only place where you can do that. 

To make the content conversational, write in the first person or second person tone to structure blog entry. It helps to make a connection with the readers. You should use your focus keyword within the first paragraph of the structure of a blog entry.

However, it is not mandatory to write a long intro. Keep it short and interesting for a captivating blog writing structure. An engaging intro helps to decrease the bounce rate and increase page views for your website.

Catchy Headlines with proper H tags

If you cover a topic for a blog post under one sub-heading, it becomes difficult to track the process. Also, you will miss the potential of ranking for several keywords. Also, your content will hardly rank for the featured snippets.

On the other hand, if one of your competitors writes the same content but with catchy and relevant H tags, your competitor will rank better with that structure of a blog post. Because users will find that content more helpful. The result? Search engines will reward that content.

So, while trying to format a blog post structure, you must use some catchy headlines for each of the sections of the content. Try to come up with some headlines that attract the readers. Use some longtail keywords on the subheadings. Next format the headings with H tags. 

Remember that the H1 tag will be used only once for the content which is in the title. For other sections, use H2, H3, and H4 tags according to the content structure.

Write in short sentences and paragraphs

While structuring a blog post outline, your goal is to make the content as useful as you can. That’s why you should always write in short sentences so that readers can understand it instantly. I would recommend keeping the sentence length within 20 words.

Also, keep the paragraphs short. Long paragraphs don’t look that good and users find them difficult to read. If possible, close a particular point within a paragraph. It means you shouldn’t carry the same thing to the next paragraph.

Short sentences and writing in paragraphs help to make the content more readable. It will help to increase page views and reduce bounce rate.

Use your own voice

There is no sin in reading a competitor’s post on the same topic as yours. But you should never follow the same style of writing. If you structure a blog post outline the same as your competitor, it means you are not adding any value to your readers. Writers often paraphrase content from competitors which is very bad in terms of SEO.

You will hardly rank with paraphrased content. Especially, after the last core update of Google, paraphrased content will be counted as thin content. And the result is getting out of the SERP.

The structure of a blog post entry should be unique. Use your own voice in the content. Tell it like a story. People should feel like you are writing the content from your own experience. No matter what the topic is, it should have a unique appeal. So, prepare your blog writing structure accordingly.

Keep the focus on your topic

Getting distracted while writing content is common. As a result, content writers often lose focus on the main topic. Writing jargon words and filling the content with unnecessary information reduces the value of the content. If you even rank with such content, there is a good chance that you will get penalized very soon with that structure of a blog post entry.

So, during the writing process, you must keep your focus on the main topic. Obviously, you will have relevant information but that needs to be based on the user’s search intent. Staying on the main topic and covering it from all aspects helps to rank better and increase the average time on the page. The result is a better ranking on the SERP.

The best part is, that if a piece of content goes for in-depth research, it ranks for a wide range of keyword variations.

Write in plain English

It is so tempting to write in a very professional tone and stand out from others. But the fact is, here your goal is satisfying your readers and making their life easier. If your readers find it difficult to understand what you have written, you won’t get any results. The bounce rate will increase and page views will decrease.

It is always better to write in plain English that everyone understands. Write in a tone so that even a grade 9 student can understand it. You can check the readability score of your content with tools like Hemingway. Once you paste the content there, it will show a score.

Use graphs, tables, and bullet points

During the research for your content, you might have got enough data for the targeted topic. You need to use those data both in the content body and other areas properly. For that, use graphs, bullet points, and tables.

If you have some statistical data and you want to present it in the smartest way, create a graph from the data. If you are comparing products, features, pricing, etc. use a comparison table. However, the table could contain other information as well. However, using tables to structure a blog post always helps.

For bullet points, focus on the topic of your content. When you want to grab the attention of your readers in the first place, you should use bullet points. That will be the best way to get more page views and reduce the bounce rate.

Add relevant images and videos

When a visitor lands on your website, he doesn’t want to read only texts. You must use some relevant images and videos along with the text content. The images could be abstract or screenshots for a particular thing. Whatever image you use, add alt text to them to rank the image for certain keywords.

Videos are equally important as images. Now you might be wondering how you will upload too many videos for a single page as there will be limitations for the hosting. No worries! Upload your videos on YouTube and then embed the video on the page where you are publishing the content.

Place keywords properly

One of the crucial steps of on-page optimization is placing the keywords in the right place. Here I already have mentioned that you should use the targeted keywords in the H tags. Besides that, you need to place the keywords properly all over the content to make it more Search Engine friendly.

The most common places where you should use primary and secondary keywords are intro, headings, and conclusion. For the content body, you need to identify where you can come up with the keyword naturally. Never insert a keyword forcefully as it can negatively impact the performance. Also, it will fail to follow the anatomy of an optimized blog post.

Keep a conclusion

Keeping a conclusion in the content is essential to give the blog writing structure a good shape. You can summarize the whole thing in this part. Also, the conclusion is the part of the content where you can use the final call to action. Make sure the final verdict is inspiring the readers to take action. 

If you are selling something, use a button to redirect the person to the product page. You can redirect to other pages as well. From the conclusion part, you can increase page views by sending traffic to other pages of the website.

Wrapping up…

Now you know how to structure a blog post to rank well and get better audience engagement. The things I have shared here are the basic things that one must follow for a blog post structure. However, you should always come up with new ideas and new structures of blog posts. That’s how you will get to know what is doing better in the SERP and what is not.

The good thing is, if you are using the GetGenie AI writer, it is easy to maintain the perfect structure for the blog. This writing tool allows users to create a content outline by analyzing the SERP so that the content performs well. Also, all the features including SERP analysis can be performed both on WordPress and SaaS interfaces.

Besides ensuring the best blog structure entry, you should always follow a blog post checklist. It will minimize your effort and reduce time in editing.